Front manicure

The front porch is planted with pink lorapetalum. They are 15 months in the ground and in need of a trimming. I trim by hand with hand nippers. I do this mostly because I lack the mechanized shrubbery trimmer or shearing equipment that runs on electricity or gasoline. I also now attest that I do this by hand because it requires no additional time than if I did it with a piece of motorized equipment. From start to finish, including the as-I-go collection of the trimmings and their removal to the waste pile in the back yard, this task took 45 minutes. Because it was a manual task, I could hear the birds fussing at my nearby lounging cats and I didn’t need hearing protection or safety glasses. I don’t have to store a canister of gasoline in my garage nor do I have to be concerned with repair or maintenance or the motorized equipment. I sat for about 3 minutes before I started and hand sharpened my nippers. I like doing tasks under my own “power”.

I then knelt and hand planted two flats of monkey grass along the landscaped bed’s edge. This grass will fill out over the years and form a thick, lush, dark evergreen circumference around all the flower beds adjacent to the house and porches.